Condorcet’s Science Obscured: Shadows Cast by the Enlightenment
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Material Reasons
Earlier I mentioned the fact that the publication of Condorcet's scientific work - even restricted to the printed works and manuscripts in fair copies - would have almost doubled the number of volumes finally published in either 1804 or in 1847-1849. The additional costs would have been prohibitive, especially for the 1804 editors. Already luxurious because of its typography, which did not economize on space, that edition would have approached forty volumes, as exceptional a number at that time as it would be today.[54] In the years preceding the appearance of the 1804 edition, Sophie de Grouchy's correspondence with Barbier raised financial questions, although in a somewhat hazy fashion.[55] A letter from Isambert to Eliza O'Connor in the summer of 1844 makes it clear that financial considerations also influenced the 1847-1849 edition: Isambert refers to a loan which Condorcet's daughter had contracted and to the savings realized during the correction of proofs because they were "printing from an already-published edition,"[56] that of 1804. If the 1847-1849 edition had been more voluminous and had included especially Condorcet's scientific manuscripts existing in fair copies, beginning with the Traité du calcul intégral,[57] the financial demands would have been even heavier.
The publication of Condorcet's scientific work would have required rereading and correcting many of his calculations. Shortly after his death, several people would certainly have been able to do it: his pupils, Duvillard and Lacroix, or certain mathematicians who were acquainted with the Traité du calcul intégral,[58] that is, Arbogast, Halma, and Lalande. But the corrections would have required much more work than for a literary text and would have been slow and laborious. By the middle of the 1840s, this undertaking would doubtless have proven still more arduous. Arago, notably, was competent for the task, but it is difficult to see how he would have had the time given his numerous social and political activities since the 1830s.
